It took a while, but the right-wing bloc can now garner 61 Knesset seats on Election Day. On one hand, this is good news for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as it bolsters the right-wing camp's confidence that what could not be achieved in the last three elections can become reality. The achievement is even more impressive because this is the case even if the Blue and White, Labor, and Meretz parties all make it into the Knesset.
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Yet Netanyahu will only have the 61 seats he needs to form a coalition if Yamina head Naftali Bennett agrees to join his government. If Likud's aggressive anti-Bennett campaign in recent days is any indication, the prime minister doesn't seem too confident that will happen. After months in which the battles on the Right were waged between the Likud and Gideon Sa'ar's New Hope party, it looks like another team is poised to take on the leaders in the nationalist camp.
According to an i24News-Israel Hayom poll carried out by the Maagar Mochot Institute, if the elections were to be held today, the Likud would receive 30 Knesset seats. Yesh Atid would receive 18, and Yamina, which has overtaken New Hope for third place, would receive 11 seats. New Hope, which appears to be losing momentum, is predicted to garner 10 seats. Shas is predicted to gain eight seats, compared to the United Torah Judaism party's seven. The Religious Zionism Party is expected to garner five seats.
On the left side of the political field, the Labor party is predicted to garner six seats and Blue and White five, while Meretz is predicted to just make it into the Knesset with four. The Joint Arab List is predicted to garner nine seats. Neither Ra'am, which recently split from the Joint Arab List nor Yaron Zeleckha's Economic Party, is expected to make it past the electoral threshold. Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beytenu party is expected to garner seven seats.
Asked who is best suited to serve as Israel's leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to lead the pack at 37%, followed by Yesh Atid's Yair Lapid at 19%. Twenty-one percent of respondents either said they didn't know or provided other names.
A majority, 53%, of respondents said the economy should be the top priority of the next Knesset. The second most important issue according to respondents was the coronavirus at 18%, followed by societal rifts at 15%. Just 4% of respondents said Iran's nuclear program and diplomatic issues were a top priority for them.
Asked who should have the final call on legislation, the Knesset or the High Court of Justice, 52% said the Knesset should have the final say, 38% said the Knesset, and 10% replied that they didn't know. Unsurprisingly, an analysis of the results found right-leaning parties tended to prefer the Knesset, while left-wing parties preferred the court. Among New Hope voters, 46% said the Knesset should make the final call on legislation.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has held his senior position since 2009, in addition to the three years in which he served as head of state in the 1990s. A majority of respondents, 62%, said they were in favor of term limits, while 27% said they were opposed. Eleven percent said they didn't know. Among Likud voters, 55% were against term limits, while 32% were in favor.
The poll also examined how Israeli voters identify politically. A majority of respondents said they identified as either right-wing or center-right; Thirty-seven percent said they would call themselves right-wing, while 21% said they were on the center-right. Twenty percent identified as political centrists, 8% as on the center-left, and 11% said they identified as leftists. A majority of secular Israelis also identified with the Right, with 28% placing themselves fully on the right side of the political map, and 23% saying there were on the center-right. Twenty-seven percent of secular Israelis said they were centrists, 13% said center-left. Just seven percent said they were on the Left.
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